Well, you’re clearly energied up, but I was wondering what Climate Change risks your in for. In the Blue Mountains here it is fire, hail, flash rain deluges, heat and lightning. At my factory in Emu Plains I have had flash deluges and more recently a lightning strike. The lightning strike is a serious risk. It damaged millions of dollars of machinery in nearby factories, and blew up tvs, stereos, and a spot welding machine in my factory. Strangely all of CNC machinery was not damaged despite the factory taking a direct hit on the TV aerial. Apparently the strike came into the other buildings through the earth connection.

In your area you will be exposed to cyclone wind damage and deluge damage (Taiwan 3 metres in four days, wow). What are your other exposures? I am rethinking dwelling designs.

By the way my family has 3 chooks in the back yard (chinese type). We are not that serious about the eggs at the moment. I just like to see them doing their thing in the back yard. They are going to be sharing their part of the yard with a 30 foot ferro cement Bristol Channel Cutter design boat for the next 3 years while I build it.

Have a look at the Russian back yards in the top photo

http://www.deltaflier.com/categories/gallery/flight

These people know how to feed themselves.

Answer? Turnbulls approach is a total cop out and offers to achieve less than nothing.

Hey Moz, yup same here, incremental change is the word and creative use of others rubbish I call resource opportunism. Building sites are great treasure troves. I wear my ‘Eccentric’ badge with pride and decorum, I am working towards getting my place shown in Vogue Living. Though, as you said, once everyone gets on the bandwagon, kind of spoils it. How many ’share holders’ with the 60 hens? Bet you get more tangible returns then any bluechip stock atm. Ceres, are u in Vic, do you do LETs as well?

Lifestyle changes are easy enough if done incrementally. It’s like gaining or losing weight – a little bit every day is easier and better than a binge once a month. After a while you notice that people refer to you as a bloody greenie and you wonder why.

In response to your comment that the oil production has plateaued, it only looks like a plateau up close. The drawn-out peak is because we are continually supplementing oilfields that are declining, in a mad race against time; replacing the dying mammoths with lots of small mice.

I would like to offer another link, to a summary graph from The Oil Drum (an oil industry online site).

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/cclt20090516.png

The difference in the number of barrels/day at the peak/plateau of 2005-2008 between the RBA graph and this graph, is because the Oil Drum does not include various oil equivalents, so it gives the dominant underlying story from the oil industry. Otherwise the trends are the same.

The most important point is that this graph shows our likely unpleasant future, starting NEXT YEAR. We are standing on the cliff at the end of the mountain range. It’s all downhill from here, folks!

The data is based on “bottom-up” field-by-field reports of detailed reservoir simulations, which are used for monitoring the production from the oilfields. Even if you don’t know what all the oil industry annotations mean, the trends are clear enough, and you can calculate the percentage decline between now and say 2020.

Somehow, we are going to have to get by on less oil. MUCH less, if the Chinese and Indians all want to drive cars too. There are orders of magnitude more of them than the current OECD car-driving population. Even if only the wealthy top 10% want to join in, that is a serious additional demand on a declining supply.

One further note, is that from my experience working on declining oilfields, they invariably decline FASTER than the simulation models predict. The models are too conservative, or too optimistic if you like. Since this graph is based on conservative modelling, the real shortfall could unfortunately be worse.

We will be living in interesting times…

re your Dorothy Dixer on lifestyle – no politician of an other than green hue will touch lifestyle. It is totally a no go area for politics. It’s easy to explain – when you’re trying to get aspiring voters or working families to vote for you for the marginal improvement in income worth a cup of coffee a week, the last thing the politician wants to tell that voter is that they can’t have stuff.

Appealing to voters to act for the benefit of others, society or the environment is a conversation of yesteryear. The only viable political strategy is cornucopia. MORE PLASMA!!

Then you read Jared Diamond’s book Collapse and related works from others and think – yep, we could wreck the place with our eyes closed. By Saturday. Without. Even. Trying.

Absolutely agree with you here
“However, this discussion nees to go beyond what are essentially two versions of ETS.

It also needs to go beyond the idea that there is no alternative to putting a price on carbon.”

Hence, my ongoing questioning about Lifestyle, isnt that what it really is going to boil down to. Should’nt we include that as a handy reference in designing and implementing Emission Reduction Approaches, or at least discuss it?

DI re biochar thing, just forget about it, common old compost is the best in regards to CO2 and soil fertility. Though it s a bit like brewing your own beer. The ingredients got to be right and basic instructions adhered to.

However, I am still asking the question relevant to the topic of this thread – Does Malcolm Turnbulls approach to Emmission Trading address/explain the Lifestyle changes our Nation will go through as a consequence? Does any politician for that matter? Or does everyone think it is business as usual?

I come back to my previous question to all in this thread, is Malcolm Turnbull addressing the LIFESTYLE CHANGES that we as a nation in consequence have to undergo?

For that matter is any politician, if only just hinting at it. Afaiks it is still all about the economy! An economy to do what exactly, apart from stimulating it lately?

stabilised organic carbon is ok, and lasts a heck of a lot longer than other organics. It can change the structure of the soil, then you have an oxidation-decay cycle operating on your composted materials, perating in a shorter term carbon cycle. In theory, if you use a once-off method to increase the organic content of soil and maintain it via better management, that is still a win. Of course, if it’s renewable and you haven’t used non-renewable energy to get it there, it’s all good.

Not excusing it, but it isn’t as bad as burning it. Nor does biochar/stabilised carbon necessarily break down. Some of the carbon in some soils is very old (radiocarbon dated).

“The one part of the oppositions proposal that i can agree with is that it won’t hhurt to spend the next 3 months having a serious discussion of the alternatives.

However, this discussion nees to go beyond what are essentially two versions of ETS.

It also needs to go beyond the idea that there is no alternative to putting a price on carbon.

Keep in mind that the clean electricty capacity installed here and in places such as europe have resulted from various schemes designed to put a price on clean electricity and and offering some market guarantees for clean elelectricty.”

Well said. Totally agree!

As you say, “Faith Birol, Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency IEA sounded an alarm that global oil production is likely to peak in around 10 years; far earlier than most governments had foreseen.”

However, if you look at the global oil production figures, you will see that despite massive increases in crude oil prices since 2004, world oil production has remained effectively flat. Flat, as in constant, i.e. not rising since 2004. If we are to believe in Economics 101, then higher prices should have caused increasing production, if we are not yet at peak oil.

The RBA has written an excellent summary Bulletin on this September 2008, called “Oil Prices and the Australian Economy” (found it online). I really, really recommend reading it – only 4 pages, but packed with interesting graphs. You don’t have to read the text, just look at the pictures!

It discusses such things as our domestic expenditure on oil (Graph 3), growing oil importation and the effect of imported oil on our Trade Balance (Table 1), the likely impact of China industrialising and producing more cars than the US, and a comparison of consumption rate with growth of other Asian tigers (Graph 5).

Graph 6 shows the plateaued global oil production since 2004, which you can consider against the increasing prices (Graph 1). Tell me that aint a fair dinkum signal of the arrival of peak oil ALREADY? We are dead set in deep manure when the GFC effect wears off…

However, this is beside my point and to some extend reinforces the issue about the circus around various issues. It is not just about how we feed ourselves, it is about our lifestyle in general. Have another look at the list @46, 40% of the average household electricity consumption goes towards airconditioning. I live in the wet tropics, the buildings that are going up around me, are still designed for building cost efficiency not for occupancy efficiency, as it provides better resale value. As a consequence they are all what we call up here ‘Shit Hot Boxes’ bristling with aircon units, if you are a lucky buyer they are of the Inverter type. And so you can go down the list.

No one is really addressing the consumer side of the issue and to me it is the crux of carbon emission reduction. As I said it is really easy; major polluters will need major consumers. If you curb/choke major polluters it will effect major consumers, and that is just about all of us.

So far we have only talked about the polluter side of the equation and conveniently forgetting our complicity in the whole situation. As I said above it is all about lifestyle and I cant see any politician grabbing that ‘can of worms’ in a hurry. Or can you?

I’m quite sure these were the numbers but I seem to be having trouble getting a link for it…. I kind of remember it being from a Michael Collins or something. Of course if I get a link I will post it as they were very interesting numbers. It was not more than two months ago!

I only caught the end of it but the context was how, if Obama was serious, then he was going to have to tackle ‘the food system’ because of such figures representing the very essence of, I am supposing the topic must have been, innefficient use of energy sources!

I wrote the numbers down but failed to really pin down the name etc… something like Michael Collins or Pollins, tho, I think!

Not that I think we need to wind back the clock and have white picket fences popping up again, no. BilBs link showed me has really changed in the last two generations, we really have become serious consumers on a unsustainable rate and scale. It is quite simple, serious polluters need serious consumers and as many as possible of them. So in order to ‘choke’ the big polluters we will have to consume less or smarter. This sounds to me like serious lifestyle adjustments. I can’t see Turnbull nor Penny Rudd to grasp that ‘Nettle’ soon.

Where as on the other hand I see alot of this “why us Aussies first” on Blogs and alot of other ‘hot air’. From all the AGW adherents very few people mention what steps they are taking on personal level. Where as for the ‘Why we first’ crowd, Guys, have a look what the Europeans are doing, the Chinese, for god sake the States. According to a newsletter email I received from Energy Matters, Walmart wants to go 100% renewable energy, China has doubled wind power capacity in the last 6 months to 12Gigawatts. Oh yes and Faith Birol, Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency IEA sounded an alarm that global oil production is likely to peak in around 10 years; far earlier than most governments had foreseen. There, it is all about lifestyle and you heard it from me first. Now back to the chookshed.

and they can again

http://www.gizmag.com/roll-out-vegie-patch/12468/

with some simple help